Consumers are increasingly relying upon mobile communications to stay connected to business associates, family members, friends and others. Cellular and other mobile phones have become commonplace, as have personal digital assistants (PDAs) and other devices that increasingly provide digital or analog communications capabilities. Consumers now rely on many types of portable devices for not only telephone communications, but also internet access, email, text messaging, location based services and other features.
As a result, many portable communications devices now include displays capable of presenting web pages and other graphical imagery, as well as input devices such as keyboards and/or touch sensors that allow sophisticated user inputs. The additional features now available on many devices, however, can demand relatively large amounts of electrical power in comparison to older devices. Unfortunately, battery technology has not allowed power supplies to keep up with the increased demands, thereby resulting in shorter battery life and/or reduced performance for many devices. That is, a tradeoff generally exists between battery life and device performance; conserving battery life typically involves reducing the performance of the device, whereas increasing performance typically involves reducing the useful time that the device can be used until the battery needs to be recharged.
Thus, it is desirable to create systems and techniques that reduce power consumption in a portable communications device. Such systems and techniques would ideally be able to improve power consumption without significant adverse effects upon the end user perception of the performance of the device. Other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the disclosure.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.